In holiday mood!

I was strongly tempted to implement a new Good Impressions branding. In the end, I resisted. Probably a wise decision!



I am not sure to whom it should be credited; I found it courtesy of Jackson Galaxy, an unlikely but highly intelligent and gifted interpreter of the feline world.

Turbocharging Word's 'Find and Replace'

Word's Find and Replace feature is a very powerful tool and I use it constantly to check consistency of spellings, capitalisation, and referenced authors' names and publication dates. I have been so busy using it, though, I have not explored it to the limit.

Recently I came across an aspect that was new to me: the wildcard tool. Why had I ignored that little tick box for so long? Used with care, it has almost magical results. Wildcards work by identifying a specific pattern of characters and replacing them with different characters; they can therefore be used in any instance which can be defined by a formula.

If in-text references include a comma (Jones, 2007) but the publisher’s guidelines specify a different pattern e.g. (Davies 2010), it is relatively straightforward to delete all the unwanted commas. By ticking the Use wildcards box in Find and Replace, inserting a formula to identify the unwanted pattern and than a formula to replace it, the commas disappear without the text being affected:

As a new user, though, I am cautious about using the facility to replace all instances at once; the compilation of correct formulas needs practice (in my case, at least) and I still prefer to make the changes singly until I am sure that there are no potential glitches in the results.

Never put a comma before 'and': truism or myth?

Many teachers and parents have favourite grammatical rules that are trotted out at every opportunity. One of the commonest is ‘never put a comma before and’. Generally applied to lists, the sentence ‘He chose apples, bananas, and grapes’ brings out the schoolmasterly red pencil and is corrected to read ‘He chose apples, bananas and grapes’. The amendment is usually harmless, but applied blindly the results can be chaotic.

Grammar serves one single purpose: to ensure accurate communication. The danger of ungrammatical writing or speaking is simply that the meaning can be misunderstood. The purpose of punctuation for a writer, therefore, is to guide the reader through the words so that ideas are conveyed both accurately and easily.

Although this supposed rule about commas is often quoted some people take the opposite view and the question causes much debate. The use of a comma before and is, in fact, optional. In the example used above the removal of the comma after bananas makes no difference to the meaning, so either sentence will pass the test and convey accurate information. The optional comma before the last element in a list has impeccable credentials; it was invariably used by Oxford University Press and so for many years was termed an Oxford comma.

There can be practical problems for writers who implement the mistaken ‘no comma before and’ rule, in that the use of commas in complex lists is sometimes essential to guide and inform the reader. Consider the following statements:

She chose different flavours of crisps: plain, bacon and cheese and onion.

She chose different flavours of crisps: plain, bacon, and cheese and onion.

The first example is not clear and the reader stumbles over the meaning. Did she pick bacon and cheese crisps? Cheese and onion crisps? Or were there four flavours: plain, bacon, cheese, and onion?

In this case, the precise meaning is probably unimportant (unless it is a key fact in a fictional murder plot). In academic writing, however, it is essential that lists conveying methodological alternatives, information about sites of case studies, or references to multiple publications, for example, can be readily split into their component parts and accurately understood. In cases such as these the Oxford comma should be a requirement, not an option.

Writing in the first person: innovation or disaster?

A year ago I opened a thesis that astounded me: the doctoral student wrote ‘I will explore the aspects of …’ and that ‘I chose the sample on the basis that …’. It was the first instance of the consistent use of the first person that I had seen in 15 years’ experience of editing academic texts.

The student explained that his supervisor had recommended this approach to acknowledge the particularly close links between the researcher and the research subjects. When, a couple of months later, I read another introductory chapter in the first person I again checked that this was not an oversight. Since that time, more theses than not have included significant elements written in the first person and I have long stopped querying it.

So why this sudden introduction of the personal into formal academic texts? Is it a fad or is there a useful purpose?

There is nothing that has to be expressed in the first person. If the author’s own experience is relevant, it can be described in the passive mood: ‘ … the researcher had worked in the local authority for ten years, so many personal contacts were available’. The purpose of using the first person must therefore be conceptual rather than practical.

Clearly, the writer’s thoughts, life, character and experience are in the background and must inform the thesis, from the choice of topic to the conclusions - a different person would produce different work. What is the advantage, though, of focusing a spotlight on the researcher, as well as on the subjects? An acknowledgement of the role of the personal is one possibility, though this can be achieved without using the first person. Beyond that it remains a mystery to me (and yes, I do acknowledge the paradox!).

The disadvantage is clearer: it is difficult to avoid the formal report of a piece of research developing overtones of a primary school essay: the spirit of ‘What I Did On My Holidays’ creeps onto the page. The student asserts ‘I think that …’ and the reader tacitly replies, ‘Who cares?’. The excitement of the ice cream and the trip to Alton Towers overshadows the main purpose of the work, and risks downgrading the research to an opinion piece.

Does this trend reflect the increased consumerisation and marketisation of education? Is the researcher at the forefront because increasingly the main aim is to enhance the student’s career rather than to add to the sum of knowledge? Is this way of thinking encouraged by Thatcher’s children reaching the age where they become doctoral supervisors? Whatever the reason, it does not read well. With luck, it may prove to be a fad. But I (as if you care!) doubt it.

The theatrical strategy for drafting a conclusion

A recent discussion about concluding a thesis led to agreement about how difficult it can be to approach the final chapter, then to possible ways of conceptualising and solving the problem. Here - with thanks to Ewan and Mollie - is one way of looking at the task, based on similar approaches that have proved helpful to blocked thesis-writers!

One of the difficulties with drafting the concluding chapter is that it needs to be approached quite differently from the preceding chapters. All the way through you have been embedded in detail - making sure that everything is referenced, that the methodology is researched, developed and defended, that every claim for the results is backed up and demonstrated by facts and quotations. At the end, faced with writing the conclusion, one tends to be so bogged down by the sheer quantity of information that the necessary succinctness and clarity of view are hard to find.

Why is the conclusion so important?
While there are many academically impeccable reasons for writing a good final chapter, in hard pragmatic terms its importance is that many examiners read the conclusion first. Their impression of the whole thesis, therefore, is coloured by the impression of the final chapter. Even if the chapter is read last, it leaves its mark just before the examiner's report is written. With this in mind, it could be argued that the purpose of the concluding chapter is to hammer home a clear message:

This is a well-constructed, well-carried out and
well-reported piece of research that results in
an identifiable and significant contribution to
the sum of knowledge.

All the thesis is a stage / And all the research subjects merely players?
While it would be foolish to pretend that this is the answer to all problems, here is one approach to writing a concluding chapter. If you have done most of the writing-up in one place (usually in front of the computer!) it may also help to sketch out the final chapter somewhere completely different - in the park, or in a café - to help achieve a different viewpoint.

Try to forget the literature review, the methodology and the data; they are, temporarily, irrelevant. Separate yourself from the details by imagining you are watching a play, as a theatre critic. On stage are your subjects, behaving in the ways that your research has shown they do. Note down what you observe, as a critical, analytical outsider, and compile the outline of your review.

• Start with a summary of the 'plot' as an introduction (that is, the main findings of what your subjects do)
• write a section on each of the 'plot threads' (or findings), and describe and discuss each one
• add a short section on the shortcomings of the study/play/production. End this with a statement that reiterates the validity and reliability of the findings (avoid giving the impression that the play is a complete flop!)
• suggest elements for possible future research to expand your own work and make it even more useful
• end with a paragraph saying why this (in theatrical terms) is a fabulous, groundbreaking production that everyone should see. In academic terms, state the importance and significance of your research; this is the short, snappy version that is going to be quoted in the play's publicity ("overturns the accepted view of ... ", "reveals that the attitudes of ... are instrumental in ...").
• Leave the auditorium and, in the best drama critic's tradition, have a stiff drink. You've earned one - after all, you still have to write the chapter, but you may now have the start of an outline!
  

I like this alot! (sic)

Follow this link for Allie Brosh's ingenious (and very funny) take on the misuse of "a lot":

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html

Wait - for? on?

A BBC radio sports commentator announced today that Manchester United was "waiting on the result of a scan on Wes Brown's foot".

The use of "wait on" instead of "wait for" or "await" is now so common that the battle to preserve the original form is probably already lost, even though the BBC website did announce more elegantly - and accurately - "Manchester United await Wes Brown foot injury verdict".

Why not accept this change as another example of natural, continuous linguistic evolution? The reason for resisting is that we are losing the ability to express the difference between two separate actions and thereby colluding in the impoverishment of our means of expression.

To "wait on" meant, until recently, either to serve someone, usually at table*, or to pay a respectful visit to. "Wait for" had the meaning of deferring an action, or of expectation (the ferry waited for the train to arrive, Sarah was waiting for her sister). Now that "waits on" is used for both, we cannot be sure whether Sarah is expecting her sister to arrive, or whether she is working in a restaurant.

Resist, resist!



* Those with long memories may recall the time when a waiter, in the UK, "waited at" table and "waited on" table only in the USA. I have not forgotten either, but because this post already resembled the ranting of a pedant, I forbore to mention it!